


Fall For Me

by chibi_zoe



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_zoe/pseuds/chibi_zoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Child safety is an extremely important subject; it just makes Minato feel like such a hypocrite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall For Me

Title: Fall for me  
Author: chibi-zoe  
Series: Naruto  
Pairing: Minato-centric   
Rating: M  
Summary: Child safety is an extremely important subject; it just makes Minato feel like such a hypocrite.

Sitting at his desk, Minato taps his pen against his chin as he tries to draft up his speech. It’s supposed to be a discourse on Konoha’s shocking child-safety record, and the things that can be done to improve matters. The fact that Kakashi’s small shadow is being cast over him, from where his student is standing guard behind him, is not helping in the slightest. He feels like a hypocrite. Here he is, trying to implement laws that will protect the children, while his own remaining young student is already a miniature ANBU, a living weapon of death and destruction. If this law gets passed then Kakashi will make his life a living hell, but on the other hand, all those kids whose lives are currently a nightmare of agony and anguish will continue to suffer needlessly. He has to do this.

Having presented his protection proposal to the Council, Minato is not really surprised when he is soundly knocked back. His grandiose plans are expansive and far too expensive, but he has put the issue on the table and that’s all that counts. From here they will begin negotiations, and if Minato plays his cards right, then the final edict will be close to what he was originally aiming for. Hopefully he won’t have to make too many concessions to get what Konoha desperately needs. Although he is kind of hoping that the elders will insist that the children currently serving in the ranks be allowed to keep their positions, but there is no way that he can bring it up himself without looking like a fraud. He hates himself for wondering who he can bribe into bringing it up for him.

The endless politicking over the proposed child protection law is wearing on Minato’s soul. Everywhere that he goes people are talking about it, he has been approached by every news media in Fire country and beyond, asked endless questions and been both lauded for taking a stand and criticised for weakening Konoha’s forces. And of course, following everywhere are the whispers about Kakashi. Never, ever, to Minato’s face, but always murmured as an aside as soon as his back is turned. It is hurting his campaign, but he cannot abandon his young prodigy, especially not now after the furore he has created. Instead, he continues to plead with the people to love and cherish the children, and behind closed doors he gives them their orders to go forth and kill for their country. It is enough to make him sick.

With his support base wavering in the face in his apparent double-standards, Minato orders Konoha’s child soldiers back from the front lines and bases them in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. He’s not sure that it has quiet the effect he was after, as it driven home to many people exactly how many youngsters are currently serving, children whose names they don’t know as well as those that they do. Ignoring their vehement cries to be returned to active duty, he organises them into squads, with an older chuunin or village-based jounin as squad leader and assigns them the dual missions of both guarding Konoha and keeping her running smoothly. He knows that he is restricting many of these children to desk jobs in the future, having effectively turned the course of their training from war to bureaucracy. He is not sorry.

Trying to convince the general population that Kakashi is now operating as his assistant, rather than his guard, is going better than he had hoped. Of course, ordering Kakashi to wear his genin clothes again was probably the smartest thing that he could ever have done. No longer looking like a parody of an adult ninja, Kakashi has ceased to be a bone of contention. What he orders the boy to do behind closed doors is no one else’s business but their own – he has never been able to resist any of Kakashi’s requests, not even the ones that he knows that he should. If the general populace were ever to find out, then Minato knows that his regime will come to an end, that all of the regulations that he has tried to put in place will be scrapped, and his own life will be forfeit. It is still not enough to make him stop.

The negotiations are over and Minato lets out a heavy sigh as he re-reads the final, confirmed, statute. It is more than what he was initially hoping to achieve, but it also comes with a price. He must take a bride and start a family of his own – to prove to the people that his new laws make him feel comfortable enough to have children of his own. Orphaned genin students that he has taken into his own home apparently don’t count; they need to be irrefutably of his own flesh and blood. There is only one right way to go about this. He approaches the Council and tells them outright that he will marry a bride of their choice, for the good of Konoha, and is not at all surprised that they already have a dossier prepared on their candidate. It horrifies him to know that he is about to ruin this Kushina’s life, but he agrees anyway.

Luckily for Minato, Kakashi and Kushina get along like a house on fire right from the start. It makes playing happy families for the public so much easier. He is also somewhat gratified to find out that even though the Whirlpool princess was the Council’s first choice, she is not their puppet and she is fully cognizant of the political nature of their union, and the consequences should they be exposed. It makes for a very courteous and reserved marriage, but he gets the feeling that by the time their child is born, they will be able to keep up the facade of a loving couple. Only Kakashi knows the truth, as Kushina did not bring a confidante with her. He wonders how she copes, as he knows that without his student for support he would not have been able to pull this off so smoothly. He needs Kakashi.

Standing at the Village gates staring out at intimidating form of the Kyuubi, Minato wonders where he slipped up. There is no way that this monster has been set upon them from outside; the secrets of the nine-tailed fox have belonged to Konoha since the village’s inception. He also knows that there are only two ways to seal a bijuu, and one of them relies on the creature being in a passive state. The only other way will require a new born baby, with his own death as the seal. Gritting his teeth, he instructs his eternal shadow to bring him his child, no matter what, and begins the lengthy, complicated, process. By the time a blood spattered Kakashi returns with the squalling baby boy, Minato is ready. When they meet in the next world, he hopes that Kushina will forgive him for his actions. He will never forgive himself.


End file.
